Transcompiler

Updated: 07/12/2017 by Computer Hope

A transcompiler, also known as a source-to-source compiler or transpiler, is a special type of compiler that converts the source code of a program into another language. It can also be used to process a program written in an older version of a programming language, and convert it to a newer version of the same language.

Additional transcompiler information

Many programming languages begin as transcompiled languages. For example, the earliest versions of C++ did not have a native compiler. Instead, C++ programs were transcompiled to the C programming language, and then changed over to binary using existing C compilers. Another use of transcompilation is to convert code that has already been compiled into the source code of another language. One example of this is Emscripten, a transcompiler which converts C and C++ programs compiled with LLVM into JavaScript.